Osteen comments on homosexuality during TV interview

Pastor Joel Osteen will be the focus of a new reality TV show. (AP Photo/Jessica Kourkounis)

January 25, 2011 8:12:39 PM PST

HOUSTON --

Lakewood Church Pastor Joel Osteen and his wife Victoria appeared on the CNN show "Piers Morgan Tonight."

Osteen spoke about homosexuality and said he believed it to be a sin in his eyes.

"I'm not one of those that are out there to bash homosexuals and tell them that they're terrible people and all of that. I mean, there are other sins in the Bible too. I think sometimes the church -- and I don't mean this critically, but we focus on one issue or two issues, and there's plenty of other ones. So I don't believe homosexuality is God's best for a person's life," Osteen said on the show.

Osteen also said that Bible scriptures show homosexuality is a sin.

Dignity, a group of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics, says Osteen is free to have that belief. But it says that attitude is fundamentalist and outdated.

George Wetzel with Dignity USA says the Bible also forbids divorce and eating shrimp, but few people consider those things sins.

Osteen's comments on the show also upset the Houston Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transsexual Political Caucus.

In a statement issued to Eyewitness News, the caucus said the pastor "publicly cast judgment against an entire segment of the population, but freely admitted multiple times during his interview with Piers Morgan that he simply does not understand homosexuality."

"Our community is filled with devoutly religious people, including members of his church, who seek to love and to serve God and one another and work to fulfill their calling of being God's best by not casting judgment upon others." said Caucus president Noel Freeman in the statement. "Perhaps Pastor Osteen would be better equipped to cast judgment upon a community he understands, or to simply follow God's teachings found in the Books of Matthew and John by not casting judgment at all."